I was once asked to tutor a ten year-old who didn’t want any help. (This has happened lots of times; I say “once” because this story is about one particular child.) He was a relatively good sport about it, because he’s a relatively compliant kid. He was not about to refuse to meet with me, and he was not about to be rude to me. But it’s hard for anyone in a situation like his to go without an outlet for resistance. So this is what he’d do. When it came time to write anything down on a homework assignment he’d write with one hand but not steady the paper with the other. The result was nearly illegible numbers and symbols. Just generally a big mess.

I’ve seen enough children doing this to discern with some accuracy when it’s the result of a lack of understanding of the physics involved in the act of writing (which it really sometimes is) and when it’s a communication. This was a communication.

I could have told him to hold the paper still, and he probably would have obliged (being relatively compliant). But then he would have found some other way to let me know he wasn’t happy with the circumstances. Instead I asked him if sometimes he holds the paper still when he’s writing on it. He didn’t respond right away. “What d’you mean?” he said (with what sounded to me like caution). I said, “I mean, I’m pretty sure you know that when you’re writing, and you hang on to the paper with your other hand or steady it with your wrist, what you write will be easier to read. So it seems like maybe you don’t feel like it right now, or something.”

He didn’t say much then, and we moved on. But the next time it happened, when he realized he was doing it, he looked up at me and I raised a dramatic eyebrow. He covered his eyes for a moment, scrunching up his face, and laughed. It became a bit of a running joke between us.

My approach didn’t change the fact that this child didn’t really want to be there with me working on math, but it set a tone that allowed us to talk about it, person-to-person. And that meant we could also talk about the various challenges and resistances that led his teachers and parents to send him to me in the first place.

This is one of those things that can seem simple but not actually be easy. It’s often not easy to figure out how to acknowledge out loud that a child’s will is involved in a behavior, with curiosity about the behavior and without immediately attributing the expression of that will to laziness or obstinacy. But it’s possible. And it’s worth it. When we find ways to access and express genuine curiosity about why kids are doing what they’re doing, we make room for a human connection that transcends the common adult/child dynamic – the one in which an adult gives a directive of one kind or another and the child is limited to a choice between compliance and defiance. Breaking the cycle of that dynamic tends to allow for much more productive and peaceful conversations.